


The White Mission

by Dragontrill



Series: Broken [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brain Damage, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky can smuggle anything, Cuddles, Hulk is pissed off, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Avengers are summoned to the White House, an unexpected stowaway on the quinjet makes everything infinitely more complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The White Mission](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3152822) by [ogawaryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogawaryoko/pseuds/ogawaryoko)



> Yeah, I don't know anything about how the White House is actually set up, so feel free to suspend your disbelief if you actually do. 
> 
> I don't have a beta reader, so blame anything that's weird or wrong on me.

Steve Rogers was so used to quick costume changes that he could go from civilian clothing to fully armoured in less than a minute. He’d been even quicker at changing during his time in the USO, but back then getting ready didn’t include prepping his weapons. After all, once he was actually fighting, the shield became only the most obvious of them.

Bucky sat bare-chested and cross-legged on Steve’s bed, hands clasping his ankles under the soft cotton of his pyjama pants and with a sleepy, just woken up look on his face. He had his own room and Sam had made it clear that no super soldier serum would protect him if Steve tried to be anything less than a perfect gentleman – not that Steve would and Bucky wasn’t in his head enough most of the time yet to want anything anyway – but more often than not, Bucky didn’t sleep well alone and would crawl into Steve’s bed with him.

“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” Steve told him as he clipped extra ammunition on his belt. “I can’t see a presidential summons as being too quick, but I’ll send word when I can.” Bucky didn’t say anything, just watching him with a yawn. Steve hid a smile, resisting the urge to tell him to be good for Pepper. Bucky seemed to equate Pepper with being on the same level as Peggy – as someone who Must Be Obeyed.

“Why don’t you go back to bed and get some more sleep?” he suggested instead. Bucky shrugged and Steve’s expression turned soft and sad. “Not a talking day?” Bucky shrugged again and Steve leaned down to give him a hug that Bucky returned using his metal arm. Talking or not, his willingness to be touched was good. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “I’ll be safe.” Bucky huffed and let him go.

He headed out, leaving the suite of apartments Stark gave him, which he now shared with Bucky.  
He took the elevator, joining up with Sam, who had his wings strapped on and a nervous expression on his face.

“Is getting called to meet the President a common thing for you people?” he asked.

Steve smiled at him. “Everything’s common with us, and you’re an Avenger now too, don’t forget.”

Sam exhaled a hard breath and grinned. “How can I forget?”

The elevator stopped and Bruce shuffled on, wearing khakis Stark had designed to expand when he did and a button up shirt. He looked even less comfortable than Sam did. “Do I really have to come?” he asked.

“The president asked for all of us,” Steve told him. 

“Not interested in seeing the White House?” Sam asked.

Bruce shrugged. “Too…governmental for me. I’m always worried someone’s going to try and grab me.”

“No one’s going to grab you,” Steve promised. 

“They have in the past,” Bruce pointed out.

“You didn’t have us in the past,” Steve said. “We’re not letting anyone take you anywhere, got it?” Bruce gave him a grateful smile.

The elevator stopped again and Tony clumped on in full suit, only his helmet still off and a cup of coffee with the words “Fuck off, I need caffeine” on the side in one hand. 

“Someone tell me why the hell I’m awake before noon,” he groused.

“Presidential summons?” Steve reminded him.

Tony took a swallow of his coffee. “So? I didn’t vote for him.” He paused to think. “You know, I don’t think I voted for anyone.”

“That’s not very patriotic of you,” Sam said.

“Patriotic is me not buying any candidates, so I’m actually patriotic as hell.”

The elevator opened a third time, now on the tower’s roof. The wind immediately blew in at them, making Steve squint and Stark curse. Ahead of them, Pepper stood on the edge of the landing pad, her suit perfect even in the wind. The quinjet was prepped for launch beyond her, Natasha standing in the open hatch.

“You people are slow!” she shouted. 

“Show off,” Sam muttered. Tony said something even less complementary and went over to kiss Pepper goodbye. 

Steve strode over to the jet and pulled himself up next to Natasha. “Ready to go?” he asked her.

“We’ve been ready for the last ten minutes,” she said. 

Steve grinned at her and moved aside enough for Sam and Bruce to get past him before leaning out the hatch. “Stark! Move it! Pepper, watch after Bucky for me.”

“How is he today?” she shouted over the rising whine of the quinjet while Stark lumbered over to the hatch, still nursing his coffee. 

“Non-verbal,” Steve shouted back, “but tactile.” She gave him a thumbs up and Steve went up to the cockpit of the jet, where he dropped down into the co-pilot’s seat next to Clint. “Ready for take-off?”

“Just waiting on the slowpokes, Captain,” Clint told him. There was the sound of Natasha slamming the hatch shut and immediately there was the gut sinking feeling of g-forces pressing against him when the quinjet lifted straight up and away from the tower, headed for Washington DC. 

At the speed Clint kept the quinjet, it was a twenty minute flight to the grounds of the White House. Steve spent the time monitoring communications and navigation, constantly checking to make sure there weren’t going to be any external issues with their trip. 

Ten minutes into the flight, Natasha poked her head into the cockpit, her expression flat. “Cap, there’s something you need to see.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Come,” she said and pulled back. Steve glanced at Clint, who just shrugged. Steve hung up his headset and followed her.

The interior of the quinjet was standard military, hard metal walls with seats that folded up to make extra cargo space. Parachutes and weapons lockups were well spaced, along with a microscopic chemical toilet behind a sliding door near the back. 

That was where Natasha led Steve. “You need to put a leash on him,” she said, not unkindly, and left, headed to the cockpit to take over Steve’s place as co-pilot.

Steve hunkered down, never taking his eyes off the man wedged in the narrow space between the toilet and the wall. “Hey, Bucky,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Bucky shrugged without saying anything. Since Steve left him on his bed in just a pair of sleep pants, he’d put on his entire Winter Soldier uniform, all black leather and Kevlar, including the goggles and face mask, and Steve could see half a dozen weapons on him without even trying.

Steve sighed. He wanted to be angry, but Bucky was just so goddamned fragile most days. “Were you worried about me?” 

Bucky gave him a tiny nod.

“So you followed us,” he said. And Natasha had to be pissed he got past her and onto the quinjet. Heck, he got past all of Jarvis’ security systems too. That was…somewhat alarming, actually.

Bucky gave him another tiny nod and something that might have been a shrug. Steve hated not being able to see his expression and he really hated seeing him muzzled, so he leaned forward, telegraphing his every move as he unhooked and removed the goggles first. Bucky looked up at him, his blue-grey eyes guileless and Steve scratched his fingers through his hair the way he liked before he unhooked and removed the mask. 

Bucky stared at him, tense. Steve ran a hand down his face, tempted to turn them around and take Bucky back to the tower, but there really wasn’t time and deep inside he didn’t want to discourage whatever this was, this actual concern for another human being instead of Bucky’s more standard robotic behaviour. 

“Okay, it’s okay. I’m not mad. We’ll make it work. I want you to stay close to me, Bucky. Guard my six.”

Bucky nodded eagerly and his smile made Steve’s heart clench. He couldn’t help the smile he gave in return.

“Come on,” he said and grasped Bucky’s hands, the left one broken up by the black of a fingerless leather glove, and pulled him to his feet. 

“What the fuck?” Sam says when Steve led Bucky over to one of the cold, uncomfortable folding seats. “What’s he doing here?”

Tony peered at them both over the top of his coffee. “Didn’t we leave him at home?”

Bucky ignored all of them and Steve sat down next to him. “He’s here now, we’ll deal.”

“Somehow I can’t see the Secret Service being very happy with having the Winter Soldier in the White House,” Bruce pointed out and gave Bucky an apologetic smile that he didn’t seem to notice.

“It’ll be fine,” Steve said and really hoped that it would be.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written a few chapters ahead. Just posting this because, eh, why not? 
> 
> Bucky really brings out the hurt/comfort monster in me, plus I kinda wrote this thing so that I could have the scene with Steve and Bucky [SPOILER]. I have no idea how long this will be. Plot struck.
> 
> Mistakes are mine. Blame me. Just be gentle about it.

They landed five minutes later on the lawn of the White House and tourists beyond the wrought iron fence took hurried, excited pictures of the team as they disembarked. Normally, Steve would go first, leading his team, but this time he dropped back beside Bucky, keeping him at his side in the middle of the group and putting Natasha in the lead.

“How are you doing?” Steve asked.

Bucky shrugged, his face placid but an undeniable tension in his shoulders as he followed Steve out the hatch. There was a roar of what was probably recognition from the distant crowd. There was a lot of footage of Bucky from the DC battle, unfortunately.

“I’m okay,” Bucky whispered, barely audible.

Steve grinned at him. “Hey, you’re talking again. That’s good.” Bucky just ducked his head and bumped his shoulder against him. Steve bumped him back. 

Sam passed them. “I’d tell you to get a room, but we’re about to meet the president.” He looked nervous again.

A group of men and women in the standard suits of the secret service approached, their faces impassive but their attention definitely focused on Bucky. Steve tensed and stepped in front of him. 

“Avengers reporting as ordered,” he said.

“Ordered?” Tony muttered. “Who was ordered? I don’t follow orders. Do I follow orders?”

“I don’t,” Bruce said. 

“I sometimes follow requests,” Tony continued. “I like requests. The good ones anyway.”

“Shut it,” Natasha hissed.

“Captain Rogers,” the lead agent said. “I’m Agent Mills, Secret Service.” He looked towards Bucky. “The… invitation… didn’t include the Winter Soldier.”

Steve’s jaw firmed. “He’s one of us.” 

“We can’t allow him into the White House,” Mills protested. “We know his history.”

Tony looked mournfully into his empty coffee mug. “You want us to leave him in the quinjet?” he asked.

“We’re not leaving him in the quinjet,” Steve said.

“Hey, we’ll crack a window or something for him.”

“We’re not leaving him,” Steve said, eyes fixed on Mills. “He’s with me. I take full responsibility for him.” Behind him, Bucky leaned against his back, his body language bored. He felt distractingly warm. “It’ll be fine.” 

Mills hesitated and there was some conferring, but eventually he turned back to Steve. “Alright, but he’d not allowed to have any weapons.” Steve nodded.

They went inside, into a large foyer that was interrupted by metal detectors and armed guards. Reporters beyond a rope barrier took pictures and shouted questions that were ignored.

“I’m not turning over my suit to anyone,” Tony said. “Besides, all I’ve got on under this are Hawaiian shorts and a t-shirt.” 

“Nice,” Clint commented. “I guess we should be glad you at least have something on.”

“Hey, what do you expect? I’m not usually awake right now. I need more coffee. Does anyone have coffee?”

Natasha walked right through the metal detectors, which didn’t sound a warning, not that Steve thought for a second that she wasn’t very well armed. Clint followed her, grinning at the uncertain guards when the alarm went off. No one stopped him and Steve hid a sigh. The no weapons order apparently was one that only applied to Bucky. He couldn’t say that he minded keeping his shield with him, but he didn’t like singling Bucky out either.

At the same time, he wasn’t completely sure that Bucky was safe with weapons just yet anyway, so as Bruce shuffled through the detector without setting off the alarm, tense but in control, and Tony managed to set all of them off with his suit, Steve turned to look at Bucky. Wilson watched.

“Hey, we need your weapons,” he said. “Okay?”

A little frown line formed between Bucky’s eyes. “Why?” 

“Politics,” Sam told him before Steve could say anything. “Someone’s a dumbass. Just go with it.”

“I don’t like giving up my weapons,” Bucky confessed to Steve.

Mills stepped forward. “The President doesn’t have time for this,” he said as he reached for one of the guns on Bucky’s hips. Immediately, Bucky had a three inch blade out, the sharp edge up underneath Mills’ throat. Mills froze and all the other agents pulled their guns. 

“Easy, Bucky,” Steve said, not moving too quickly even as he reached out and took Bucky’s wrist, moving his hand away Mills’ throat and easing his fingers open so he could get the knife. Bucky didn’t resist, but the second Steve released him, he had another knife up in place of the first. "Bucky!”

Mills swallowed above the knife. “Um, Captain, maybe it would be better if you checked him for weapons instead.”

Steve looked at Bucky. He was still staring at Mills, but there was a glint of what was probably amusement deep in his eyes. Of all the times for him to decide to play… “Right. Okay, jerk, assume the position.” 

Bucky went willingly enough, feet spread and hands flat against the wall. It wasn’t the first time in the last few months that Steve had to frisk him. The first month, it had been nearly an hourly thing. It wasn’t so much that Steve minded him being armed, but Bucky would use his weapons whenever he was nervous and in those first few months in the tower, he spooked way too easily.

So he was used to this, as was Steve, but he wasn’t used to having an audience and certainly not to having news crews film him feeling up his oldest friend on live TV. 

He tried to keep it professional, patting Bucky down along his arms and across his chest and back, finding while he did so no less than ten knives, four handguns, a disassembled machine pistol, two garrottes, a butterfly knife, Stark’s phone – which he started yelling indignantly about when he saw it – and enough ammo to supply all of it. The pile of weaponry Steve dumped on the table beside them grew increasingly impressive and the agents and reporters watched it with something definitely approaching awe, while Steve hadn’t even gone below Bucky’s waist yet.

“You’re terrible, you know that?” he said as he squatted down to take the lock picks and poisoned flechettes out of his boots, along with another garrotte. Bucky just shrugged and started humming “God Bless America” under his breath.

Unsurprisingly, he found more weapons in his pants. Bucky looked to have brought everything he could and Steve felt strangely touched that he’d bother. He was also starting to feel a bit uncomfortably warm in his uniform. Bucky’s muscles felt very nice under his hands and it had been a long time since – he shoved that thought out of his mind. Bucky wasn’t in the headspace to understand what consent meant. Sam would kill him. Bruce would kill him. Natasha would kill him. Pepper would kill him. None of them would have to because he’d kill himself.

After recovering all of the components needed for a sniper rifle, Steve straightened up. “Okay, is that all of it, Buck?”

Bucky looked back at him over his shoulder with a supremely innocent look on his face.

“Goddamnit, Bucky!” Steve said and shoved his hand down the front of the other man’s pants. The news crews didn’t have an altogether unsurprising response to that.

“That’s gonna break the internet,” Sam observed. Bruce had his hands over his face but the rest of the team was watching. Clint looked amused, Natasha appreciative. Tony filmed them with his recovered phone.

“This is already going out over network TV,” Natasha pointed out to him.

Tony just leered at his screen. “I have a better angle.”

Steve ignored them and Bucky’s apparently healthy biological reaction to where his hand was and tried not to blush as he felt around and came back up with a handful of small, round, metallic explosives. Bucky grinned at him.

“Really, Buck? Did you really have to?”

“Where else is he supposed to keep his balls, Cap?” Clint yelled.

“You’re blushing,” Bucky whispered to him, eyes half lidded and breath warm on Steve’s cheek. 

“Am not,” Steve retorted, even though he knew he had to be as red as Tony’s suit. He wrapped his arms around Bucky so he couldn’t grab any of his weapons off of the table again and lifted his feet a few inches off the ground so he could walk him past it and through the metal detector. It went off anyway thanks to the arm and all of the gear Steve carried, but no one stopped them. They looked like they were afraid to. Bucky was giggling.

“Grounded,” Steve told him. “You’re so grounded. No TV for a month.”

“Punk.” Bucky still sounded gleeful. He was happy, Steve realized. Inappropriately so, but still happy. It was a good thing to realize and he resolved to get him out more often if this was how well he responded to it. There had been flickers of the real Bucky in there, underneath the seven decades of abuse and brain damage and the resultant fractured thinking.

Their arrival at the president’s office was less than flawless, given the shuffling, bored, or semi-asleep state of half the team and the fact that Captain America was leading the Winter Soldier by one hand. Mills looked especially unhappy as he introduced them. Some of the advisors surrounding the President had expressions that were even worse.

“Mister President, the Avengers.”

Steve stepped into the room and snapped off a salute. Bucky matched it beside him, using the wrong hand.

The president stood and came around his desk to meet them, hand outstretched, and Steve stepped forward to shake it. “It’s good to see you again, Captain Rogers.”

“You too, Sir.” He hesitated as Bucky yanked his hand free and wandered over towards the wall, staring up at the ceiling with a vaguely distant look on his face. Sam intercepted him and led him without actually touching him over to the couch before the watching agents could become too nervous. “Um, we came as fast as we could.”

“Yes, you did, Captain, and America is very grateful.”

“So what’s up?” Stark asked from where he’d taken a seat on the couch next to Bucky, the frame threatening to give way underneath him. 

The President looked pleased with himself. “You’re here to help send a message to America’s enemies.” Steve’s eyebrows shot up.

“What?” Sam sputtered. “What message?”

“That they have the Avengers on speed dial,” Bruce said and he sounded disgusted.

Steve winced. That was what this was about? Showing the world that the Avengers would drop everything and show up when the White House called? He was American to his core, but the Avengers were supposed to stand for more than that. They were supposed to defend against earth-wide threats, not whatever the American political system was against, many of which were issues that made the patriot inside of him cringe uneasily. He looked back at his team. Bruce was still disgusted, Sam shocked, Clint and Natasha unsurprised, and Bucky distracted. 

Tony looked straight at the president. “So you called us here just to prove you could.”

“It’s very important that the world know-“

“Yeah, whatever.” Tony waved him down. “Do you know how expensive my time is? How much I charge by the hour? I should ask Pepper how much I charge by the hour. It’s probably a lot. I’ll send you a bill.”

The President frowned. “I hoped you would be more patriotic, Mr Stark.”

“Maybe I should have just bought you at the last election. Nah, to be honest, I woulda bought the other guy.”

Steve took a deep breath. “Mister President, the purpose of the Avengers isn’t just to serve America. We exist for the sake of the entire world.”

“Of course,” the man beamed. “We only want the world to know that you’re America’s first.”

There was a flash of movement in Steve’s peripheral vision. Bucky. He wasn’t getting up though. He leaned forward instead, staring downward between his knees to a spot beside the coffee table, where there was a plug built directly into the floor. Tony had them in the tower too and while it was weird that they weren’t in the wall, it did make it easier to plug something in when you wanted it in the middle of the room without tripping over cords. He reached out his left arm and curiously tapped the plastic cover. 

“Sir,” Steve tried again. “We can’t be used for something like this. People in other countries will lose faith in us.” 

Bucky stabbed his metal hand down, through the carpet around the ground plug, and ripped it and the attached wiring straight out of the floor.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted as he spun around.

Bucky ignored everyone who was yelling at him and calmly plucked a listening bug off the wiring, holding it up to the light and looking at it with an almost quizzical expression. 

Everyone gaped at him. “Bucky,” Steve managed at last. “How did you know that was there?” In the White House, inside the Oval Office…

“I saw him plant it,” Bucky said. “I remember.” He tossed it to Steve. “Catch.”

Steve caught the bug. It was small, unmarked, and so obviously Hydra that it could have had the skull with octopus arms printed right on it. He looked at Bucky, his mouth dry. “What else do you remember?” he asked.

“Uh,” Bucky said, suddenly seeming to realize that everyone was staring at him. He shrank back and pulled out a chocolate bar.

“Where did you get that?” Bruce yelped. “You’re on a restricted diet!”

“The Hulk,” Bucky told him before he yanked the wrapper off, shoved the whole thing into his mouth, and started to chew.

Bruce’s eyes flashed green and he held out his hand. “Whatever else you’re hiding, give them over,” he ordered.

Bucky regarded him for a moment, cheeks full, and then dropped a ring dagger onto his palm.

“I meant the chocolate! God, give me strength not to kill him!”    
Steve snatched the ring dagger before Bucky could take it back and hunkered in front of him.

“Didn’t he already frisk him?” one of the agents asked Wells, who was sputtering.

Steve ignored the agents, the President, and the chocolate that Bucky would likely be vomiting back up in an hour. “Bucky, come on, focus.”

Bucky looked at him and swallowed. “I was… sent here?” He sounded uncertain, as he always did when he tried to remember anything from his time as the Winter Soldier. It was like trying to see through a very thick fog, he’d said, but returning to places he’d been before was the best way to clear that fog up, at least temporarily. “They wanted me to get the man with the tools in?”

Steve nodded. It made sense. Bucky didn’t have the skill set to insert any bugs that wouldn’t be found in a cursory sweep, but he was good enough at what he did that he could smuggle in the people who did without them being found. It made him wonder what other kinds of espionage he was used for, when he wasn’t being forced to be an assassin.

“Are there more bugs?” he asked.

“I… think so?”

The President cleared to his throat and Steve rose to his feet. The man’s face was ashen, spots of colour high on his cheeks. “Captain Rogers, I want all of Hydra’s surveillance out of this building, immediately!”

“Yes, Sir,” Steve said with an automatic salute.

“Does this mean I can’t bill him for my wasted time anymore?” Tony asked. “Damn.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments. Like any author, I feed on them. Feel free to keep them coming. :)
> 
> BTW, I'm adding tags as I think of them.

Bucky wandered around the White House like an errant tourist who periodically liked to put his fist through walls. He’d found another surveillance device in the Oval Office, up underneath the moulding that edged the ceiling, right where he’d been looking when they first went in. 

The Secret Service cleared the halls and rooms ahead while the Avengers wandered along behind him, letting him go wherever he wanted, following even as he tracked his own faulty memory, muttering to himself and towing Steve along by his flesh hand behind him.

“What the hell’s wrong with him?” he heard one of the agents ask behind, low enough that he probably thought Steve couldn’t hear him. “What’s he got to hold hands with Captain America for?”

“I heard he’s a retard after working for Hydra for so long,” another agent replied. “Took too many shots to the head.”

Steve was about to turn around and say something when someone else beat him to it. “Actually,” Bruce said, and there was enough of the Hulk in his voice that Steve tensed as he looked back. Bruce’s expression was furious. So were those of the rest of the Avengers, but they let Bruce speak. “Actually, Hydra’s methods of control caused a lot of damage that it’s taking time to heal. Right now, he doesn’t multi-task well. His holding the Captain’s hand is his way of protecting him, because if he’s touching him, then he knows where he is while he’s focused on something else.”

“And the amount he’s protective of the Captain is how much we’re protective of him,” Sam added. “Plus, I really don’t like that word you used.”

“No kidding,” Clint growled.

“Look,” the first agent started to say.

“Get out,” Natasha told them.

Tony cocked a thumb at Wells. “I’d say get your idiots out of here before they end up gutted. Just a hint. Well, a strongly worded hint. Okay, a threat. From assassins. Think about that.” 

Steve turned back around as Wells dismissed his two agents, a look on his face that said they wouldn’t enjoy their conversation with him later. Steve didn’t have any sympathy. If they’d been his men they would have had plenty of opportunity to regret their idiocy. Bucky was making his way the best he could, and he was healing. He was doing much better than when they first found him and the experts said the damage to his brain meant he’d never be able to think independently or take care of himself again.

If Bucky heard any of that, he didn’t acknowledge it. He found ten more listening devices, old but functional and masked so effectively that they never would have been found if Bucky hadn’t led the way right to them. Steve really hoped that he remembered where all of them were. 

Finally, Bucky stopped up on the second floor, humming and tapping a metallic finger to his lips. “Is that all of them?” Steve asked. They were in the President’s private quarters and he felt awkward to be invading the man’s privacy. Bucky looked around and then back at Steve, his brows drawn together. He huffed and instead of answering, turned and towed him along back towards the stairs. The Avengers got out of the way, as did the Secret Service agents. Bucky liked it when Steve touched him, but his response to anyone else doing so could be unpredictable. 

Bucky ended up, after a few aborted turns, in a small bathroom in one back corner of the building, one that really wasn’t much more than a powder room with only a single toilet and sink in it. Bucky walked in and stared at it.

“Uh, you want some privacy, Buck?” Steve asked, embarrassed. Bucky looked at him, puzzled, back at the toilet, and then again at Steve with a familiar smirk that reminded him of Brooklyn streets. 

“You’re a goof, Steve,” he said and crouched down. He worked his fingers around the edge of one of the wide floor tiles and lifted. There was a hatch underneath.

“Oh, shit,” Tony said, looking over Steve’s shoulder. 

“What? What is it?” Agent Wells pushed himself up beside Steve and stopped, staring at the hatch, as did Steve. It wasn’t new. That thing looked like it had been there for a while. 

Bucky hummed, content with his discovery, and traced a circle near the top of the hatch, with some twining doodles beneath. Steve had just realized he’d outlined the shape of the Hydra symbol when he yanked the hatch straight out of its moorings and jumped down through the dark gap that was left behind.

“Bucky!” Steve shouted.

There was no time to think about this, no time to strategize or do a recon. Bucky was down there alone. Steve grabbed his shield off his back and held it edgewise over his head as he jumped feet first through the opened hatch. 

A little bit of recon probably would have been a good idea. Steve plummeted down a chimney, the walls damp and covered in moss that made them slick. There was a metal ladder and he grabbed for that, but it was as slick as the walls at the speed he was going and hard to get a grip on. He felt like he almost dislocated his shoulder before he got a strong enough hold to stop himself. His shield tumbled with an echoing clatter into the darkness below.

“Steve!” Natasha shouted from far above. “Are you alright?”

“Don’t jump after me!” he yelled. “There’s a long drop!”

“Some of us aren’t idiots!” 

She had a point. Steve looked around. It was too dark to see anything or to tell how much farther the ladder reached. He couldn’t hear Bucky either. “Bucky!” he yelled, but there was no answer. “I’m going down! Be careful on the ladder and follow me. Bring lights and Bruce! Bucky might be hurt!” 

She yelled an acknowledgement and Steve climbed down as fast as he dared, praying with every rung that Bucky hadn’t been hurt. He had a version of Eskine’s serum in his veins, he was strong and fast, able to heal well enough from injuries that would kill anyone else, but there were permanent scars on his body that made Steve want to cry when he saw them and remembered that he’d let him fall too many times already.

Steve counted sixty-five rungs of the ladder before he felt open air around him. He still couldn’t see, but the echoes of his boots on the ladder gave him the impression of a larger space, broken only by a single light off to his right, one that reminded him of a flashlight’s beam, only it was lying on the ground, illuminating the concrete floor and the edges of crates and machines. There was no sound from Bucky.

The light had to be Bucky, Steve told himself as he finally reached the ground. He started towards the light, tripping over something that turned out to be his shield, and ran towards that light as Tony came out of the chimney behind him, riding down on his thrusters.

“Hey, Cap, find him yet?”

“No! Get over here with your lights!” Steve went nearly to his knees crashing over abandoned boxes and struggled back to his feet. The flashlight was Bucky’s. It had to be his. The man could hide machine guns and chocolate bars in his uniform. He’d have a flashlight. He’d have a perfectly good reason to leave it lying on the ground.

Steve had almost reached that small light when Tony’s spotlights flashed past him and Steve skidded to a halt in horror at the sight of Bucky and the terrible chair that he sat in.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually did the vaguest amount of wikipedia research on mental illness for this. I'm still following the Robert Forward rule of science fiction writing (here applied to fan fiction, obviously). Follow the science, but if the science ruins the story, change the science.
> 
> Still adding to the tags.

Among the SHIELD files that Natasha had dumped onto the internet in order to expose HYDRA were a few incomplete records of the Winter Soldier project. There weren’t many, but there was enough to get Bucky pardoned for everything the Winter Soldier did at the same time he was legally declared incompetent to make decisions about his own care. Both rulings meant that Bucky was spared being asked about what was done to him in any kind of official capacity and no one had been able to get past the Avengers in order to ask him privately. 

Steve didn’t need to ask him. Thanks to those records, Steve knew about the chair, the cryo-tube, and the memory wipes. He knew that Bucky wasn’t allowed to remember anything between missions except for who his masters were, along with the fear of pain. They were all hoping that most of those memories would stay wiped, but no one was sure if they would. Bucky certainly hadn’t said whether they did or not. Talking about what he did remember could come later, once Bucky’s mind healed as far as it could and even then, only if he wanted to bring it up himself.

The records Steve managed to read before he had to go and throw up hadn’t detailed how many of the chairs there were, just that they were even less portable than the cryo-tubes and didn’t take well to travel. Hydra apparently found it easier to set them up in their various bases ahead of time.

Now there was one of those damned chairs here and Bucky slouched in it, his eyes glassy and unresponsive in the glow of Tony’s spotlights, obediently waiting for someone to come and fry out his brain.

“Oh fuck me with a rocket ship,” Tony breathed, his voice mechanical and disturbed.

Steve dropped to his knees in front of Bucky. He desperately wanted to pull him out of that chair and blow it to bits, but when Bucky was this disassociated from his surroundings, there was no telling what touching him would set off. He might be locked back in the fugue of the Winter Soldier, where Bucky wasn’t allowed to exist and his mission was to kill Captain America.

Tony launched some sort of flares that illuminated the entire area and Steve was peripherally aware of a make-shift lab sharing room with crates of supplies and weaponry. There was an entire armoury underneath the White House, but he barely cared about that. Bucky’s eyes stared straight ahead, not reacting to the lights coming up all around him. If he’d become the Winter Soldier again, he would have, probably with extreme violence. 

This was something else, Steve realized, a case of Bucky actually trying to help himself. Bruce had said once that it was a physical response to his brain dumping natural opiates such as dopamine wholesale into his bloodstream; a survival technique as his body tried to both compensate for and numb the pain caused by unbearable stress.

Tony equated it more with a severely over clocked computer turning itself off to prevent burning out. 

Either way, seeing the chair was more stimuli than Bucky could handle, so he’d just shut himself down. 

“Cap?” Tony asked, more tentative by far than was his norm. The tininess was gone from his voice as well, a sign he’d removed his helm. “He going to be okay?” The others started to come up behind him, none of them getting in the way, though Steve did hear Natasha swear and then run past him with Clint in tow, to secure the rest of the room.

“Check for HYDRA agents,” Steve said, his voice hollow. There was a low grunting behind him and the sound of Wells trying to get reception on his communicator. “This place might not be abandoned.” He couldn’t take his eyes off of Bucky and reached forward to lay a gloved hand along the side of his leg, above his knee guards. Bucky didn’t react. 

“Uh, Steve?” Sam said. “We have a problem.”

Steve gently pulled Bucky out of the chair and into his arms, cradling him boneless against his chest. When he pulled off his glove and laid it against Bucky’s neck, his pulse was as rapid as if he’d been in combat. His hand lifted to stroke the man’s ashen cheek. “Come on, Bucky, come back to me.” He raised his voice. “Get Bruce over here!”

“That’s the problem, man!” 

His arms still wrapped securely around Bucky, Steve looked back. In the light of the flares, Bruce was shaking, shoulders hitching as he groaned and heaved, his hands clutching at his hair. His muscles bulged unnaturally, straining the seams of his shirt and shoes, even as his pants expanded to accommodate them. In the harsh white light of the flares, his skin showed a definite green tinge. 

Bruce’s gaze met Steve, desperate and frightened. “Go,” he choked and grit his teeth in another convulsion that had his neck muscles cording and his height increasing by another foot. 

Steve, Sam, and Tony all looked at each other, none of them speaking as Bruce continued his unwilling transformation. None of them had to say it. The only times the Hulk had ever been reasoned with were when Bruce himself initiated the transformation. When the Hulk came out on his own…

Tony’s faceplate hissed closed. “Get racoon boy out of here. Falcon and I’ll distract the big guy. Wells, I’d suggest pissing your pants and running if I were you.”

“Sounds like a good idea for us too,” Sam said, even as he drew a gun. There was a fifteen foot clearance on the ceiling, but that still wasn’t enough space for him to fly. 

Steve stood, Bucky’s dead weight carried bridal style in his arms as he started to back up in the direction that Natasha and Clint had gone. The ladder into the White House was beyond the Hulk, but they couldn’t let the creature go that way, not with all those people there. Plus it would be difficult enough getting Bucky up that route without a thousand and forty pounds of angry monster chasing them up the shaft. Not without Bucky’s help to climb, which it didn’t look like he’d be giving for a while. 

Steve didn’t want to run though, since that would just draw the Hulk’s attention to him. He moved slowly instead, thinking to get enough distance between them that the others could provide sufficient distraction for Steve to get Bucky to the ladder without Hulk caring about them. Hulk had no reason to target him; he even listened to Steve’s orders when he was in the mood.

“Hey, big guy,” Tony called out as the Hulk straightened, green and enormous, his back to Steve. “How about you, me, and Sam play a game of tag while Cap gets his boyfriend back home for his nap, sound good?”

The Hulk snorted, scratching his arm as he ignored Tony and sniffed the air. 

“I must be nuts,” Sam said and started to clap his hands together. “Hey! Hey, ugly!”

Steve backed up another step. Get Bucky around the Hulk and up into the White House, lock him in a private room where nobody would bother him – or god help them, try to actually touch him – then back down here to help subdue the Hulk and find out how extensive this underground base was, how far it went, and how many HYDRA agents were hidden down here just waiting to shoot them in the back.

That plan went straight to hell along with most of the plans ever made in war when the Hulk turned around. He stared straight at Steve, brow furrowed in confused anger, and then down at the limp, helpless form in his arms.

Hulk’s roar shook the room, knocking crates over and bringing bits of rubble down from the ceiling.

Pure animal brain reaction had Steve running, sprinting as fast as Erskine’s serum could make him go with Bucky clutched to his chest, the Hulk so close behind him that he could hear his hot breath rushing over the shield on his back. There was a high-pitched whining sound and an explosion, one of Tony’s missiles hitting the giant and knocking him briefly sidewise. Sam was yelling, unintelligible through the continuous staccato of gunfire.

Steve kept running, past the edge of Tony’s flares and back into darkness. He didn’t dare slow down. Even strong as Captain America was, only Thor was powerful enough to go toe to toe with the Hulk.

Ahead of him, light gleamed through the darkness, waving back and forth in a complicated pattern of signals that Cap could read as easily as a book. He slanted towards it, hearing the Hulk racing up behind him again and judging the distance still between them. Fifty feet, forty, thirty… Hulk’s growling made his balls want to crawl up inside his body and hide. Steve grit his teeth and kept going.

The light was Clint, waving one of his arrows where the head was on fire. The light of it illuminated a set of double cargo bay doors, still closed while Natasha knelt before their control panel, a flashlight gripped in her teeth as she worked on the wiring. 

“This way, Cap!” Clint shouted and fired the arrow he’d been signalling with. It flew past Steve’s ear and he heard Hulk roar. Clint already had another arrow out, lit and shining the way for Steve. He fired it immediately, but Steve had seen the way now, knew where obstacles he had to avoid lay on the floor. Ahead, the doors were an even deeper black than the rest of the darkness, but he kept running straight for them. There wasn’t time to slow down. 

He and Bucky were only a stride away from colliding headlong with the thick metal doors when Natasha twisted the last wire she needed and they shot open, flooding the square right before them with light. Steve squinted, half blind, but still able to see the ranks of armed HYDRA agents waiting for them on the other side.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably not a psychologically approved method for dealing with trauma...
> 
> No beta.

Caught between two enemy forces, Steve chose the one that presented the least amount of threat. He turned back towards the Hulk with angry face bearing down on then, clutched Bucky as closely to his chest as he could, tucked his head down, and kept running backwards through the cargo doors, headed for the HYDRA agents with the shield on his back in the lead.

It had always been a gaudy thing, with a reputation that reduced a lot of what Tony called ‘The Cheese Factor’, but the overdone paint job had always had a purpose beyond propaganda. If it hadn’t, Steve would have painted it over before he ever took it into the war zones of Europe. The star in the middle of the bull’s-eye painted on the front was a nearly irresistible target and so far, the only one who’d ever kept his head enough in a fight to shoot at Steve instead of at his shield and actually score a hit was Bucky.

These men were nowhere near his level. Bullets pinged off of the shield and before someone could think to duck and take out Steve’s legs, he was on them, two hundred and forty pounds of fast moving muscle even before taking into consideration Bucky’s additional weight and all their combined armour.

He bowled into them, knocking men down as momentum and determination alone kept him on his feet, Bucky clutched close like the precious thing he was. In front of him, the Hulk barrelled through the open doors, smashing the jamb, and the HYDRA men forgot about Steve in favour of screaming in terror and opening fire uselessly on the Hulk instead.

Steve spun around again and ran, sprinting down the corridor and around the first corner he came to. From there, he darted around every other turn he found, his goal for the moment just to get Bucky away from the Hulk. His roars echoed after Steve, leaving him unsure if the beast was right behind him or still ripping men apart at the ambush point. It was too hard to tell, especially over the strident scream of alarms echoing overhead.

He did see other HYDRA agents, both men and women, but while there were shots taken at the two of them, no one was willing to try and fight Captain America directly. He just kept moving, separated from the rest of his team in the maze of corridors but free. 

His sprint finally took him to a part of the base - which was uncomfortably large and seemed to reach underneath a disproportionate percentage of the city - with plain doors staggered along both sides of the corridor. Enough of the doors were individually decorated to indicate they were personal quarters and Steve rammed shoulder first into one at random.

It was a bedroom, a messy bed against the wall with clothes scattered on the floor and porn magazines on a metal desk in one corner. There was no one inside, so Steve laid Bucky down on the bed and went to wedge a chair underneath the knob of the broken door. A quick search of another door on the other side of the room revealed a tiny bathroom and then Steve returned to Bucky.

He was still out of it, his eyes closed now and his heartbeat slower than before, but he wasn’t reacting to the alarms or panicked voices yelling commands over a speaker system.

Of course he wasn’t. The entire reason he was like this was to escape stress. He wasn’t going to react to even more negative stimuli; it would only push him deeper. He needed something positive instead, to ground him and let him feel safe enough to come back to himself.

With one eye on the door and listening for anyone coming down the corridor outside, since his enhanced hearing would let him hear them regardless of how loud it got, Steve set his shield down and pulled off his helmet. Then he undid all the various straps and buckles of his upper body armour and pulled that off as well, as well as the t-shirt he was wearing underneath. 

Bare-chested, he went over to Bucky and unbuckled his armour as well, stripping him down to the waist. Once he was as bare as Steve, he laid down and carefully maneuvered Bucky until he was lying half of his side and half across Steve, his head on his shoulder and the bare skin of their chests pressing together. He wrapped his left arm warmly around his friend - and oh, this reminded him of how much more he wanted to be than just friends - and drew his sidearm with his right, pointing it at the door just in case.

His heart beat against Bucky’s, solid and steady, his skin hot against his, coarse chest hairs scraping together. His breath whispered against Bucky’s eyelashes as he bent his head and pressed a soft, gentle kiss to his forehead. 

“Bucky,” he whispered. “Hey, Bucky, it’s safe here. It’s Steve.”

Their hearts beat at the same rhythm and Bucky rose and lowered with every one of Steve’s breaths. He pressed more kisses against his temple and his cheek, against the corner of his eye.

“Bucky. Come on, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

Footsteps ran along the corridor outside. Steve cocked the gun. 

“Buck, please. Buck.”

Bucky sighed, shifting and sliding his cheek against Steve’s chest, like a cat laying its scent on something that belonged to it. Bucky smelled like clean musk and the woodsy shampoo he liked. He smelled like he had back in the forties, before the war, only without the brine of the docks he worked at and instead the tang of machine oil. He was still Bucky, still the man Steve would give his soul for, and when Steve kissed the tip of his nose, he made a tiny sound and tilted his face up so that the next kiss pressed against dry, chapping lips. 

“Stevie,” he mumbled.

“Hey,” Steve grinned, tightening his grip into a hug. “Welcome back.”

Bucky grunted and cuddled closer. “Din’ go nowhere.”

Overhead, someone was yelling over the speakers, ordering troops to converge and stop the Avengers, but the voice was barely audible through the static, the sound of Hulk’s roars, and repeated explosions. Guilt flooded him. He wanted Bucky to be his priority, but now that he was awake, he had to think about his team and the fact they were fighting out there alone, covering for him.

“Bucky, we need to get up.” 

“Don’ wanna.” Bucky nuzzled his cheek and Steve’s groin tightened. Idiotic libido, he thought. It needed to stop. Even if they weren’t in the middle of an enemy base, Bucky needed his support, not his unwanted lust. 

“Bucky, we need to get up,” he whispered.

Bucky’s arm wrapped around his neck and he snuggled closer. “I want to stay asleep.” 

This was the Bucky that gave Steve hope that his friend wasn’t as lost as he seemed so much of the rest of the time. Half-asleep and content, he was so much like the Bucky Steve remembered from their tiny, freezing apartment back in Brooklyn so long ago. That Bucky had never wanted to get up before he absolutely had to. “Buck, come on. We can’t.”

The new Bucky reminded him that he actually wasn’t the old Bucky anymore when he licked his earlobe. Steve nearly came in his pants. “Why?” he whined.

Steve took a deep breath. “We’re in the middle of a HYDRAA base and I have a gun pointed at the door?”

Bucky paused. “What?” He shook his head, coming more awake and pushed himself up, looking around in confusion. “What?”

And here was the Bucky that made Steve’s heart ache, so confused and broken, turning to look at Steve with troubled eyes. Most of his memory of his past might have been gone, but he didn’t have any problem remembering anything that happened after he left HYDRA.

“I endangered the mission,” he whispered.

Steve holstered his gun and cupped Bucky’s face with both hands. His arousal was gone, worry twisting his gut instead. “No, you didn’t, Buck.”

“I did. I was weak. I was-“

“We wouldn’t ever have known the White House was bugged if it weren’t for you. We wouldn’t know about this base. Don’t overlook that.”

Bucky just looked at him from only inches away, his face filled with distress. “I disobeyed you, Captain,” he said. “You said… watch my six. I didn’t. I went ahead.”

Steve didn’t know what to say. When it came right down to it, Bucky was right. He had gone ahead alone. If he hadn’t, if someone had been with him when he found the chair – if Steve had seen it first, he’d have held Bucky back until it was hidden or destroyed. Bucky might have been fine if he had and they wouldn’t all be split up and fighting right now. There was a reason why soldiers had to obey orders, even when they were their leader’s oldest, most beloved friend.

Careful as always to telegraph his moves, he put his arms around Bucky again and hugged him, daring to press a fresh kiss to his forehead. “You’ve got my six now, don’t you?” he asked.

“Yes!” Bucky reached across Steve to his hip and drew the same gun he’d been pointing at the door. Steve let him and Bucky got off the bed, taking up a firing position with the weapon aimed at the door.

Steve dressed back in his armour while Bucky covered him and then drew his second sidearm to cover Bucky while he did the same. While he did, he tapped the communicator in his helm that he still wasn’t used to having, but there was only static. The signals could be blocked, Tony had told him. He’d promised he’d invent something that couldn’t, but was too easily distracted by other things to get to it so far. 

He retrieved his shield last, strapping it to his arm as opposed to putting it on his back. The familiar weight was comforting. “We need to regroup,” he told Bucky. “Stealth is the priority for now.”

“Seen,” Bucky said, an indication that he’d heard and also understood.

There was no sound of anyone in the hallway outside, so Steve opened the door with his shield before him and peered out. It was clear and the two of them exited, Steve facing the way he’d come with Bucky’s back against his, covering the other direction. Outside the private room, the amount of sound was painfully loud and the lights flickered, the floor shaking under them. It felt like an artillery barrage back in the war and Steve sincerely hoped that the entire base wasn’t about to cave in.

He turned and tapped Bucky’s shoulder. The shorter man looked at him and Steve pointed at his himself, then at Bucky and lastly at the corner ahead. Bucky nodded and Steve moved forward, setting his feet silently despite the sound as he moved to the corner, Bucky following. Just as he reached it, he raised a fist and hunkered down. Bucky mimicked him, obeying each hand signal as if it had been a verbal order. Steve peered around the corner and immediately counted seven nervous but armed HYDRA soldiers gathered in a small atrium, apparently arguing about what they were supposed to do next. Steve turned to Bucky and made a quick sign indicating ‘enemy’ and held up fingers to indicate how many and how he wanted them to proceed. Bucky put the tip of his left index finger to his thumb to show he understood.

They moved around the corner at the same time, Steve already throwing his shield as Bucky moved against the targets he’d been given. It was a short fight, quickly over before the enemy had much time to even realize they were there, but it felt good to be fighting with someone who worked with him so well. Natasha, Clint, and Sam understood military tactics and commands, but the two assassins were more used to working solo and Sam had been a combat med tech, not infantry. Bruce didn’t go into combat at all and the only hand signal that Tony understood involved the use of only one finger.

It was good to fight with Bucky, who understood him so well that both of them were essentially extensions of each other. In combat, all of Bucky’s damage faded away, replaced by muscle memory, relentless training, and experience. All he needed was to ‘do’ and to obey. Steve didn’t know if it was healthy, but right then it felt good and as they stood in the middle of the downed enemy, he couldn’t stop the grin that was on his face.

Bucky’s grin in return was just as genuine.  
 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No fluff in this chapter, just a lot of plot-forwarding violence. Hope you like it.

One of the explosions in the base knocked out the jammers that blocked their communicators. A few minutes later, they regrouped in what looked to be a kitchen area, though even back in the thirties, this place would have been shut down for health reasons. With all of the mould growing on the walls and the rat feces in the corners, anyone who was hungry would have lost their appetite.

None of the grime, however, stopped Bucky from stocking up on knives to go with the weapons he’d taken from every HYDRA agent they dropped on the way. He was back to being non-verbal, not even acknowledging the rest of the team, but he stayed precisely where he should be, at Steve’s side and just behind him.

“Anyone hurt?” Steve asked, crouched with the others behind the prep counter, Bucky pressed against his side. 

Natasha and Clint both were dusty, but neither looked more than scratched. “We’re fine, Cap,” she said. 

“I’m okay too,” Sam said. He had a cut over one eye and was exhausted, but he managed a weak grin. “Got knocked over by Hulk, but he managed not to step on me. It might even have been intentional on his part.” He looked at Bucky. “Hey, you doing better now?”

Bucky didn’t seem to realize he was being spoken to at first, and once he saw everyone was staring at him, he flushed and hid his face against Steve’s shoulder.

“He’s good,” Steve said, looping an arm around the other man to give him a hug. No one commented. “Tony?”

Tony grimaced. “I have dents inside my dents. I need to start adding more internal padding. Can we just let Hulk finish smashing this place up and go home now?”

Steve shook his head. “If this place caves in, so does everything above it, including the White House.”

“I can live with that.”

“How do you plan to stop him?” Clint asked skeptically. All of them ignored Tony.

“Only way we can,” Steve said. “Lure him out into the open, keep him busy and as far away from people as we can. Meanwhile, get Maria Hill to fly his cage out here and once she arrives, get him into it.”

“That’s…” Natasha hesitated. “Not an easy plan.”

“No way around it,” Steve said. “That’s our mission.” He felt Bucky shift against him and gave him a last squeeze before he let go and looked at Tony again. “Can you remotely hack into the computers here and locate the base plans? Find us a way out that doesn’t involve White House bathrooms? And contact Maria while you’re at it.”

“Oh, sure,” Tony grumbled. “Why don’t I just book us all into a bed and breakfast for a spa day after while I’m at it.”

“The rest of us,” Steve continued, “will get the attention of the Hulk while you do.”

“Suddenly, hacking a half destroyed computer system sounds good.”

Steve didn’t entirely understand how computers worked. He knew how to use them, at least at a basic level, but he’d never needed anything beyond that. He certainly didn’t know how hard his command to Tony might actually be. He just knew that Tony was good at what he did, but it seemed he was even better than Steve planned for, because less than three minutes after they left the kitchen, cautiously making their way through what was more and more looking to be a deserted base towards the sounds of the Hulk, he had the information Steve wanted.

“Here’s the layout of the base,” Tony said, and projected a three dimensional map up into the air in front of them. Steve memorized it as quickly as he could, noting there were several exits, apparently into buildings throughout Washington, but the best one for their needs was into a warehouse, and apparently it was the one HYDRA used to bring in supplies. It was big enough to fit the Hulk and was also in a less inhabited section of the city, so there would hopefully be few if any casualties. 

“I also got hold of Maria Hill,” Tony added. “She’ll have the cage to us inside thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes of fun,” Sam muttered.

“It’ll be a good workout,” Natasha said.

“Right,” Clint snorted. “We’ll just ping arrows in his butt and play keep-away until then. Great strategy, Cap.”

“It will be if it works,” Cap shrugged. “Everyone, standard formation until we find the Hulk, then wide. Remember your arcs and keep an eye on each other's six. There may still be HYDRA around.” 

“Only if they’re dumb,” Tony started. “Oh wait, they’re HYDRA.”

There was no point in waiting and plenty of reasons not to. Cap took the lead, Bucky glued to his six as he hurried forward, all of them guarding each other’s backs as they leapfrogged from passage to passage, checking for enemies even as they converged on where sounded like the Hulk was, providing they weren’t just chasing echoes.

They weren’t. Hulk was in a lab, smashing everything into useless shards of metal, glass, and plastic, uncaring of the foul stench of released chemicals and flames along one wall. Steve hesitated. He had no idea what those chemicals were and no desire to send his team unprotected into a potential hazard. There wouldn’t be any spreading out to confuse him with multiple targets here. He nodded at Hawkeye instead. 

Clint gave him a grim nod in return and stepped forward, bow already drawn with an arrow notched. He sighted down the shaft, but it was a nice, big target and he had no trouble landing an exploding arrow in the centre of the monster’s left butt cheek.

Hulk turned with a roar and immediately charged. There was an instant of gut level panic that had the Avengers turning and bolting, but training and professionalism kept them from looking for cover and instead they ran up the wide corridor that would take them to the route outside of this base, the Hulk right on their heels.

“Iron Man!” Steve shouted. “Go ahead and clear the doors!”

“Good! I hate running!” Tony blasted off the ground, skilled enough that the bare scrape of clearance he had was enough for him to fly through the twisting corridors ahead of them.

Everyone else ran. Natasha was as fleet as a deer, sprinting up the corridor with Clint not far behind her, one hand gripping his bow and the other holding his quiver steady so that it didn’t bounce on his back. Sam followed them, and for all he was a slow jogger when it came to his morning exercise, he was moving fast enough now. Steve just hoped he had the stamina to keep this pace up for long enough.

For himself, he could have outrun all of them, but there was no way in hell he was going to put himself anywhere except for between his team and the enemy. Which left just one person and he glanced sideways at Bucky, running easily at his side despite how he was just a hair slower than Steve at full speed.

“Go forward with the others,” Steve told him.

Bucky’s forehead furrowed with confusion. “But I’m supposed to have your six,” he said.

“I want you to help Sam get out of here,” Steve told him. “Go.”

Bucky blinked and nodded. He put on speed and raced up ahead of Steve, towards the corridor that Sam and the others had already vanished around. That left Steve at the back of the group, with Hulk’s angry breath on the back of his neck as the monster chased him while he was chasing Bucky, and only the fact that the ceiling was too low and Hulk had to smash his way along slowed him enough for them to actually outrun him.

"Head's up!" Stark shouted over their communicators. "Got goons on the surface!"

"Perfect," Steve muttered and put on a burst of speed, catching up until he was just behind Bucky as they turned onto a new corridor which sloped upwards, wide enough for a truck to drive down. Sam had been starting to flag but Bucky had a grip on his elbow and was forcing him to keep the fast pace.

The floor straightened out directly into the centre of a warehouse with dirty windows high up on the walls and the skeletons of scavenged machines everywhere. There were men behind some of those ruins, ineffectively shooting at Tony in the air and now at the rest of them. Steve bolted past Bucky and Sam and blocked a shot with his shield. Natasha and Clint were already under cover and returning fire.

Sam's wings snapped out to either side the moment he had enough room and he took to the air, arching up towards the high roof of the warehouse and back around in a strafing run with the pistols he carried. Tony was even more effective with his pulse beams and immunity to bullets. The defence against them was just a last ditch, panicked effort by the enemy, ordered by someone who was afraid to report in their failure. It was the sort of fight the Avengers could finish up in minutes.

The arrival of the Hulk defeated that record. He barrelled up the sloped passageway, roaring in utter fury and somehow looking even bigger than he had before, as if increased anger increased his size. Perhaps it did. Steve didn't know and he and Bucky ducked behind what he truly hoped was an empty fuel tank. The HYDRA agents, being already frightened and apparently not the brightest of recruits, opened fire.

"Everyone get outside," Steve said into his comm while the Hulk demolished the last of the HYDRA agents. He couldn't say he felt any regret about that. "This place won't hold him for long. Watch out for civilians."

A chorus of yeses and rogers and one 'this job sucks' sounded. Bucky looked over from where he crouched beside Steve and gave him a steady nod. It was so different to see him this way, filled with such utter focus, as a contrast to the confused, often frightened, usually mentally absent man-child he became the rest of the time. It was good to see the soldier in him letting him concentrate, but the Soldier wasn't what he needed. He needed to be able to heal everywhere, until he didn't have to be fighting for his life in order to feel normal.

Still, for now Steve would take anything he could give and he clapped Bucky on the shoulder before turning back to his comm, one eye on the Hulk. He'd be finished with HYDRA soon and start looking for them. "ETA on the cage."

"Almost here," Tony replied. "Hill's breaking records flying it to us. As long as she doesn't drop it... Whoops!"

The 'whoops' was accompanied by him dodging the HYDRA body that Hulk just threw at him. Natasha and Clint started firing on the green giant from opposite sides of the room.

"I need more airspace!" Sam yelled.

"That must be my cue!" Tony turned and charged up, firing with all his blasters at the doors. They were metal, but not designed for that kind of barrage, at least not from the inside, and they exploded outwards, letting in the evening light and the sounds of sirens and helicopters. Steve wasn't surprised that they'd drawn attention, but he really hoped that no one got in the way. Back in the war, civilians usually had the sense to run away from the explosions.

A moment later, they were all heading for those doors, running for their lives as if the outside actually held some unspoken secret of safety, and the infuriated Hulk came right behind them.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember, comments feed the writer.

The warehouse was part of a small industrial park with a variety of buildings grouped in a rough circle where they shared a central parking lot. There were other people there. Beyond the parking lot and between the other buildings, Steve could see people moving, filming everything with their phones the way people always seemed to be doing nowadays. They'd arrived even before the police, who were converging now with their sirens blaring. 

"Get back!" Steve yelled at them, even as he ran away from the warehouse. He would have liked to take cover, snipe Hulk from a distance and keep him moving until Hill arrived, but not with these people here. He didn't want to take any chances with Hulk deciding to go after them if he didn't see any convenient Avengers to chase instead. 

The others had the same realization. Sam and Tony were of course visible in the air, but when Hulk crashed out of the warehouse, taking out half of one wall rather than using the door they'd opened for him, Natasha and Clint both exposed their locations, well clear of the civilians.

Without really thinking about it, Steve shoved Bucky down behind a parked car, saying "Stay" to him as he did, and bolted out from cover, straight towards the Hulk. He wasn't sure if Bucky would be mad at him for that; the original Bucky he'd known back in Brooklyn would have been utterly furious, but he wasn't really that man anymore. Outrage might be too complex an emotion for Bucky to process just yet. Steve just knew he didn't want him in danger again, not when he could prevent it. This wasn't fighting free of a HYDRA base when they had no real backup coming. This was distracting the Hulk until they could capture him and Bucky didn't have to help. He could stay safe and hidden and if that meant he was mad at Steve, then Steve would grovel for his forgiveness later. 

The Hulk turned towards him, face twisted in a rage so pure that Steve knew there would be no reasoning with him. The Hulk like this was nothing but absolute destruction, rage made incarnate. He lunged at Steve, arms bigger than Steve's entire torso sweeping around to catch and crush him. 

Steve jumped, somersaulting over those arms and landing just long enough on the Hulk's bowed head to front flip off him, being sure to slam him in the back of the head with the flat of his shield on the way. It wasn't enough to hurt Hulk, but it enraged him further and, more importantly, turned his attention fully away from the watching civilians, now joined by police and what looked to be Agent Wells and his people. Instead he turned on Steve and the other Avengers. 

"Someone tag me!" Steve shouted.

"Got it," Clint said. Steve saw a flash of black and purple as the man ran past him, straight for the Hulk. Distracted by Steve, Hulk ignored him and Clint dropped into a sliding skid underneath him and straight between his legs, firing an arrow upwards as he did that hit in a spot that Steve didn't want to imagine.

It certainly got Hulk's attention. He spun as fast as his bulk would allow and went after Clint, who curved away from the civilians, running as fast as he could until he was tagged by Tony, who dived down and got the Hulk chasing him by firing all the missiles he had left straight into his face.

Sam took over for Tony and then Steve was up again. They traded off for an increasingly exhausting ten minutes at least, drawing the Hulk back and forth in the clear area in front of the warehouse and keeping him away from the watching spectators, none of who realized how badly Steve wanted to yell at them for being stupid.

Finally, the sound he'd been waiting for arrived, the sound of a quinjet that drowned out the rotors of all the helicopters that were filming the action and unintentionally helping out by providing light now that the sun was down.

Maria Hill had finally arrived, flying a quinjet that carried the Hulk's cage underneath, something that Bruce once described as being half a gerbil ball. It was stronger than the Hulk was, tested by the creature himself in one of his better moods, and Maria set it down with the single door wide open and easily large enough for the Hulk.

"Everyone ready," Steve said into his communicator. He was getting tired. He'd taken more than twice as many turns as anyone else, but the others had to be tired too. They needed to end this. 

"I've got this, Cap," Natasha said and she bolted out of cover, shooting at the Hulk as she sprinted towards the cage. He turned towards her and as her bullets hit his eyes, he roared and charged. He wasn't getting tired at all; Steve was starting to worry that he was actually getting faster.

Natasha abandoned her guns and ran, fast as she could towards the cage with Hulk gaining with every stride. She reached the cage and leaped, bouncing feet first off one side of the doorway, up higher and off the opposite side, and to the top of the doorway, where she grabbed a strut above the door and flipped onto the roof, where she raced across the sloping roof and down the other side.

The plan was for the Hulk to follow her straight into the cage, whereupon the doors would automatically shut behind him and not open again until Hulk's weight diminished back to Bruce's. They could fly him back to the Avengers tower and let him roar out his rage in peace. 

The Hulk veered and ran around the cage.

"Shit!" Sam yelled. "Is he supposed to do that?"

"No!" Tony shouted back. "I knew I should have put an invisibility shield around that thing!"

There was no way around it. They had to get the Hulk into that cage and Steve wasn't going to let anyone else take the risk, not if the Hulk was getting smart enough to avoid it. "I've got it," he said into his comm. "Everyone stay back."

"What do you mean, you've got it?" Sam asked. "Steve, what are you doing?"

Steve didn't answer. They knew his orders, he just had to hope they'd obey them. He bolted out from cover, his sweaty skin slick underneath his uniform as he ran for Hulk. 

With her cage run aborted, Natasha had been forced to take cover behind a series of cargo containers stacked alongside the building next to the HYDRA warehouse. Hulk was grabbing them and tossing them aside like legos in his search for her. 

Steve ran towards him, firing into the back of his head as he did. "Hulk! Hey, Hulk! I'm the one you want! Come and get me!" 

Hulk started to turn, growling, and Steve readied himself to change direction and run. Instead, Hulk spun around and threw a massive chunk of twisted metal at him.

Steve had no time to dodge.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I am evil. Why do you ask?
> 
> Put this together into a series with one of my other stories, since they're connected. Should have done it sooner, really.

Everything hurt. 

Almost everything. Steve felt a hand stroking down his cheek and along his neck where it pressed over his pulse, gentle against the pain that throbbed through the rest of his body. 

Nearly against his will, he opened his eyes and looked up at Bucky. His friend was bent over him, his long hair framing Steve's face and sharing his breath with him. Bucky's eyes were soft, a tiny line of tension between his eyes that Steve wanted to rub out with his thumb, only when he tried to move, pain shot through him.

"You're hurt," Bucky whispered. "I saw it. Hulk hit you with a cargo container," Bucky frowned. "Your shield protected you, but don't move. Okay? Don't move."

Steve grimaced as he remembered his last few seconds of consciousness. Getting his shield up between him and the oncoming cargo container had been all he could do. Nothing was pinning him down, but he still hurt. He had no idea how badly the impact had injured him, not that it mattered. None of them were safe yet.

"I don't have any choice," he coughed as he heard the Hulk roar from far too close. The roar was accompanied by explosions, proof the Avengers were trying to keep him away from Steve. 

Bucky pushed him down when he tried to sit up. "It'll be okay," he said and he gave Steve a sad, wistful little smile.

Steve tried to sit up again, but when it came down to it, Bucky was nearly as strong as him when Steve was his best. Right now, there was no comparison. "Bucky," he gasped. "Let me up. I can't stay here. We have to get the Hulk into that cage." Besides, he couldn't just lie here, unless he wanted to end up stepped on. 

"The mission. Yes. I remember the mission. The mission is everything." 

Steve went cold all the way down to his toes. Something in his tone was very wrong. "Bucky, that's what Hydra used to say. You don't have to think that." 

"I'll finish the mission," Bucky said very distantly, as if he hadn't heard him.

The cold turned to terror. "Bucky, you're not an Avenger. You don't have to do anything." 

Bucky leaned down and kissed him, his lips chapped but somehow still delicate against Steve's. "I hope I dream of you, after," he said. "I'd like that, if I got to dream about you. It would make me happy. Do you think that maybe I've done enough good somewhere that I'd be allowed to sleep happy for once?"

"No... Bucky, no!"

Bucky stood, turning away. Steve was surrounded by a lot of metal, but he still had enough of a view to see Bucky walk away from him, his hair blowing in the night air and one leg dragging behind him, playing lame to draw the Hulk after him. 

"Bucky!" Steve screamed and forced himself to his knees. Pain wracked him, but not as sharp as seeing Bucky hobble towards the cage while the Hulk turned his head and saw him from a distance of only a few hundred feet. 

Hulk snorted and started after him, shrugging off Tony and Sam's attempts to turn him as he loped after Bucky, his shuffle turning to a ground covering trot that quickly covered the distance between them, too quickly covered it. Bucky let the Hulk close with him, ignoring everyone's screams and yelling as he focused on the mission and if anyone ever said the word 'mission' around Bucky again, Steve was going to beat them unconscious with his shield. If there still was a Bucky after the Hulk caught him.

"No. Fucking. Way," Steve panted and pushed himself to his feet, healing slowly, far too slowly as he forced himself into a run, shoving the pain down as he ran, aware of the other Avengers moving as well, all of them converging in a panic from too far away.

Bucky didn't acknowledge their shouts for him to get out of there; maybe he didn't even hear them. Only the mission existed for him now, thanks to seventy years of HYDRA conditioning that didn't care what happened to Bucky so long as he got the job done. Steve felt sweat and tears on his face as he ran after his friend, his friend, his everything. All he had left from his old life, all he'd ever wanted.

The Hulk loomed over Bucky, a low growl thundering out of him as he reached for him. That was when Bucky ran, bolting out from under the massive hands so fast that Hulk stumbled in surprise, chuffing at the fleeing streak of silver metal, black kevlar, and leather.

Let him go, Steve prayed. Please just let him go. Bullets spattered off of Hulk's hide and Steve flung his shield. It arced through the air and underneath one of Hulk's moving feet. He stumbled, massive arms stabbing down into the concrete to catch himself and he looked back at Steve, his lip twisting up.

"BAD MAN," he grunted.

"Yes!" Steve yelled at him. "I'm bad! Come and get me!"

"Cap!" Natasha shouted. "Be careful!" 

"Cap, you're insane," Tony told him. "You know that, right?"

"Shut up," Steve grunted. "Get Bucky!" 

"On it," Sam said and dove. Wings canted back, he arced towards the ground, barely five feet above it and well into his suit's flight danger zone as he shot towards Bucky, who stood before the entrance to the cage now, beautiful in the uncertain winds from the news copters filming him, hair wild and moving in contrast to his utter stillness as he stared the Hulk down.

He saw Sam coming. Steve watched his head turn a bit, seeing Falcon coming towards him, and just before he could be rescued, he dropped into a crouch, low to the ground and underneath Sam's ability to grab him.

"Shit, I missed!" 

"Bucky!" Steve screamed, trying to run faster.

"He's not going to let anyone touch him, Cap," Natasha said.

He wouldn't. He wouldn't willingly allow anyone other than Steve to come that close to him. Steve felt his eyes sting at the thought that Bucky wouldn't let anyone else rescue him and Steve was too far away. 

At least the Hulk wasn't charging. Somehow that was worse as he lumbered towards Bucky, knuckle-walking towards him in a low trot with an endless growl rumbling out from his throat. Bucky stood still with his arms spread as if to welcome him. 

"No no no no no no." Steve didn't have his shield. He didn't have any bullets left and something was tearing inside him, slowing him down even as he tried to run faster, not caring if he killed himself as long as he got there before the Hulk did. 

"Shit," Tony groaned. "Here's hoping leather boy doesn't see where this comes from. I don't want to wake up with him stabbing me tomorrow."

Tony launched something, some sort of energy that sparkled like a Christmas ornament in firelight. It hit Bucky's metal arm and electrical arcs suddenly arced up the length of it and into the man. He stiffened, eyes wide and his mouth open in an O of surprise, and then his eyes glazed over and closed as he went limp.

Tony swept down towards him, grabbing Bucky's metal arm even as the man folded bonelessly to the ground. He brought his feet around to let his thrusters carry them both back up into the air and then the Hulk was diving for them, bellowing so loudly that the air shook around all of them.

Tony tried. Steve saw him shift, attempting to rocket out of there in the nearest direction, even if it meant dragging Bucky's unconscious body on the pavement, but the Hulk was too close. He flung himself at them and there was nothing but a mass of green, black, gold, and red rolling straight through the open door of the cage until suddenly Tony was free, blasting backwards and out from underneath the Hulk's grip, across the ground in a shower of sparks.

"Damnit!" he sobbed. "Damnit damnit damnit! I had to let go! I would have pulled his arm right off. I had to let go!"

Steve barely even heard him, the pain in his gut infinitely worse than that in his wounded body as he watched the cage door slam closed, locking Bucky into an unbreakable cell with the Hulk.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting near the end of this. One more chapter, I think. Unless inspiration clubs me over the head again.

Steve threw himself at the thick, transparent material that formed the dome of Hulk's cage, as if he actually had a hope of breaking through it to get to the defenceless man within. Inside, Hulk was hunched across Bucky like a lion over its kill, and he lifted his head and growled in Steve's direction. Steve couldn't see anything of Bucky other than his tangled hair and the curve of one ear. He was lying between Hulk's forearms and Steve couldn't tell if he was bleeding, if he was alive.

"Hulk," he said, and he'd never been more serious. "If you hurt him I don't care what it takes. I'll find a way to kill you." Hulk's answering roar was barely muffled by the cage.

"And here goes Captain America, losing his shit. Do we have a plan for this?"

Steve spun on the inventor, one hand reaching out to grab the edge of his open visor and haul him up close, suit and all.   
"And you! Why in HELL did you shoot Bucky??"

To his credit, Tony looked upset. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I just wanted to get him to stop moving long enough for someone to get his ass out of there."

There was a degree of logic there, but Steve wasn't feeling too big on logic at the moment. Now that the Hulk was contained, the people who'd been watching the fight started moving closer and the television copters flew lower. The sound of all their chatter made Steve's head ache and he didn't let go of Tony's suit.

"Why did that shot work on Bucky so well? Why did you even have it? What did you do to him?"

Tony grimaced and tried to step back. Steve wouldn't let him. "Mini EMP burst with a biofeedback shock designed to match his physiology and knock him out. Bruce helped me develop it. It's really kind of cool. See, what we did was-"

"Why. Did. You. Have. It?" Steve ground out.

Tony's look, while worried he was about to lose some teeth, was also full of pity. "Because he was the Winter Soldier? Because we all know his mind's messed up. The knockout blast was specifically designed to take him down without him being harmed, just in case." 

"Just in case?" Steve yelled and pointed at the cage. The Hulk was still watching them, still huddled around Bucky. "Is that the sort of 'just in case' you were planning for? Shooting him when he's trying to save us? If you were so worried about just in cases, why didn't you design something to stop the Hulk instead?"

"Because the Hulk's too strong for anything we've got to work on him that way! All we can do with him is try not to piss him off and when that goes to hell, get him contained! Like we just did!”

"Steve." Natasha appeared beside them, carrying Steve's shield. "We have an audience."

Steve didn't particularly care, but he let go of Tony and accepted the shield, clipping it to his back before he turned and stared into the cage, hands against the pseudo-glass. Hulk was looking down at Bucky and poking at him with one finger. It made Steve want to cry.

Tony started to back away. "Uh, I'll go, you know, keep the bystanders happy. Um, yeah? Yeah, I'll do that. You just stay here and, uh, stay here." Tony's face twisted, obviously trying to think of something to say. "Look, I'm sorry. I tried, I fucked up. The shot didn't hurt him, I made sure of that. He'll be okay. It's not like Hulk's gonna eat him or anything and, yeah, I'll go shut up now." He turned and clattered away.

"Braniac," Natasha muttered.

Steve kept staring into the cage. Sam gingerly put a hand on his shoulder. "Look man, Stark's an idiot, hoo boy is he stupid, but I think what he did helped." Steve managed to look at him. "Hulk isn't attacking anymore. Bucky being unconscious? He's not a threat. If Hulk felt he was dangerous, he'd smear him all over the inside of that cage, right? Instead he's just, well..."

"Acting like Koko the gorilla with her kitten," Clint finished, wandering over with a handful of arrows and an exhausted look on his face. 

"I was going to say treating him like a toddler with a hamster," Sam said.

"Well, let's hope the hamster doesn't wake up and bite him." Natasha muttered under her breath as she went to intercept Wells and his men, but Steve heard her anyway and he cringed. 

He had to get control of himself. His team had the situation in hand. Tony had the reporters and spectators all gathered together, Maria Hill now at his side keeping him from saying too much that Pepper would be on him for later. Natasha had Wells and his agents in tow, using them to form a perimeter around the cage and the warehouse. Clint was gathering arrows and Sam was staying at Steve’s side, not saying anything but being there.

They didn't need Steve right now, but he should still be acting like their leader, not leaving them to guess at his orders, regardless of how well they did at it anyway. He just couldn't get this near panic that was clawing at his throat to go away. 

Steve circled the cage, Hulk watching him warily from where he was hunkered down in the centre, curled around Bucky. From one angle, Steve could finally see Bucky himself, sprawled on his side between Hulk's massive arms and under his chest, his hair covering his face and so still. 

"I'm supposed to take care of him," Steve said. "They put him in my custody and I bring him here? To go through this?"

Sam stood at his side. Hulk watched them both. "You do take care of him, man. And none of us knew this was going to happen. HYDRA bases under the White House? How were we supposed to know?"

"They could take him away from me for this," Steve said, his voice choked. "Everything we did to get him back and he could end up spending the rest of his life in a high security mental hospital, or in the Fridge, because I didn't protect him well enough."

"Hey!" Sam grabbed his arm and Steve let him pull him around until he was facing him. "Don't you do that to yourself. Nobody's taking Bucky away from you because there's no way in hell you'll let them. You're Captain America. You've saved the world at least three times that I know of. Anyone tries to take Bucky and half this country will rise up on your side. You'll have teams of lawyers volunteering to kick their ass in court, for free."

Steve felt a smile curl up the edge of his mouth. It wasn't the first time that Sam had faith in him when Steve didn't. It helped sometimes. "Thanks, Sam," he said. 

"Hey, man. This is what I do."

Steve took a deep breath and focused on the Hulk's glaring face. His team could handle the crowds and Agents. That was why they were a team. His focus had to be on the main. threat and his greater responsibilities, both of which meant protecting Bucky however he could.

"Hulk, listen to me," he said, keeping his tone even and his words simple. The Hulk wasn't very smart, but he knew as well as anyone when he was being spoken down to. Most of his success with him in the past, Steve felt, was because he didn't treat the Hulk like he was a child. 

Hulk looked at him and gave a low, sonorous growl. "WHAT YOU WANT?" he boomed.

The very fact he'd spoken was a good sign he'd started to calm down, though it could be hours before he calmed enough to revert back to Bruce. 

"Hulk, you have someone very important in there with you." Steve swallowed. "You need to keep him safe."

Hulk gave him a loot that clearly showed what an idiot he thought Steve was. "HULK KEEP," he said and lunged forward, slamming a fist against the glass right where Steve stood.

Steve jumped back despite himself. Hulk was wrapped around Bucky again, pulling the unconscious man up so that Bucky was cradled in his arms, his face pale, while Hulk sat back against the glass wall and glared.

Maria Hill appeared at his side, as impassive and put together as always. "Do you want me to prep the cage for the trip back to Avengers Tower?" she asked.

Steve stood with his arm leaning against the glass and watched the Hulk from underneath it. "No. I don't want to agitate him at all. We'll wait here until Bruce gets back."

"This isn't a tactically safe location," she pointed out.

She was perfectly correct. Steve looked down at her. "We stay," he repeated. To her credit, Maria only nodded and walked away, likely returning to Tony's side so she could keep him quiet. The crowds had only grown beyond some hastily set up police barriers, despite the increasingly late hour and the fact that there were now armed soldiers heading into the warehouse. Steve wondered how the fact that there was a base there almost next door to the White House was going to be kept quiet, but ultimately, he just couldn't find it in himself to care enough. That was going to be someone else’s problem.

“Bucky,” he whispered. “Stay asleep until Bruce gets back, please.” If God would grant him just one thing after everything, it would be this; to not have Bucky wake up in the arms of the Hulk.

God never did pay any attention to Steve’s wishes.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff and therapeutic snuggling. I think every fanfic I've read about Bucky and Steve has the "I'm not him" line. Here's my take on it.

Ten minutes later, the Hulk looked down at Bucky, his nostrils flaring before he lowered his head and huffed out a breath. 

“Uh, what’s he doing?” Sam asked as he pushed himself to his feet where he’d been sitting on a chunk of broken pavement.

“I think Bucky’s waking up,” Steve said, hating every word of the admission. He pounded on the glass, shouting for the Hulk’s attention, but the creature ignored him. All he could do was press against the glass and watch while hopelessly praying that nothing went wrong.

Hulk had Bucky nestled in the crook of one arm, an adult-sized baby for a monstrous mom. He reached with his other massive hand, one finger as large around as Bucky's entire head-

-and brushed an errant lock of hair out of his face.

"Holy shit," Sam breathed. Steve wasn't sure if he was even breathing at all.

"WAKE UP," Hulk said. "LITTLE HUMAN WAKE UP."

Bucky stirred, his eyelashes fluttering for a moment before he opened them and just lay there, gazing up at the green face only a few feet away from his own. Hulk huffed, blowing the rest of his hair back.

At that point, Bucky seemed to wake up enough to realize where he was and whose embrace he was lying in. He gave a panicked, terrible wail that went straight to Steve's soul and tried to fling himself out of Hulk's arms. Hulk growled and clapped his free hand overtop of him, holding him down.

"NO FIGHT," Hulk said, looking annoyed. Bucky just kept scrambling to get away, continuing with that heart-breaking, terrified wail.

"Bucky!" Steve shouted. "Bucky! It's okay! I'm right here!"

Bucky stopped squirming at the sound of Steve's voice and craned his neck around until he could see Steve over the curve of Hulk's bicep. His eyes were wide with fright.

Steve swallowed and gave him the warmest smile he could manage. "Hey, Buck. I want you to relax, okay? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere. Hulk's not going to hurt you. He's taking care of you while you're in there, that's all." He looked up at Hulk, hoping he was right. "You don't want to hurt him, right?"

Hulk frowned. "HULK SAVE FROM BAD MEN," he growled.

Steve nearly sagged against the glass in relief, even though Hulk had spent most of the day confusing the Avengers with those bad men. 

"Well, that's the world's nastiest babysitter," Sam said.

Steve smiled again. "See, Buck? You're safe as aces. Just relax and I'll come and get you as soon as I can."

Bucky stared at him for a long minute and slowly nodded. He turned his head back towards Hulk and hunched in on himself a little, obviously uncomfortable but willing to trust Steve. 

Sam gripped Steve's shoulder. "You feeling like you're going to be okay now?" he asked. 

Never taking his eyes off of them, Steve nodded. "Starting to." It had been so close. Even in the process of wanting to protect Bucky, Hulk nearly got him killed. Nearly killed all of the rest of them. He'd come close to crushing Bucky and Steve didn't think he was ever going to forget the sad look in Buck's eyes when he said his goodbye's to Steve, before he used himself as bait for the cage.

The next time he found Bucky hiding in the back of the quinjet, Steve didn't care if they were on their way to have tea with the Queen of England. He was going to turn them around and take him home.

In the cage, Hulk leaned close to peer at Bucky, eyes squinting, and a metal hand rose to poke at his lips. Hulk reared back with a startled snort and then leaned back in so that Bucky could explore his face with both his hands, both of them silent and the result of very different types of trauma, but communicating with each other anyway. 

###

When the Hulk finally shrank back to Bruce, well into the early hours of the night, when the majority of the civilian spectators and even most of the news crews had left, Steve was still standing where he'd been for hours, Sam at his side. The other man had moved so that he was sitting against the side of the cage, though, his eyes closed and a soft snore coming out of his mouth.

Right after the Hulk vanished, the door to the cage opened with a hiss. Steve was through it immediately, racing to Bucky's side as he scrambled on his butt away from the rather exhausted looking Bruce. He dropped to his knees and yanked the smaller man into his arms, Bucky gripping the front of his uniform just as tight in return.

"Don't you ever fucking do that to me again, jerk," Steve said and held him even closer.

###

Usually, Steve was up by five am so that he could get his morning run in before most of the rest of the world was even thinking of waking up. Avengers Tower was only sixteen blocks away from Central Park and there were a lot of good running trails there.

After the battle in the underground HYDRA base, it was well past five am when Steve dragged himself, newly showered, into bed. Everyone was likely in bed, he suspected, except possibly for Tony, who lived on coffee and nervous energy. Bucky was installed in his room down the hall, already curled up under the covers when Steve peeked in at him. There'd be debriefs and meetings and inquests later, but for now, he'd convinced Agent Wells that the Avengers needed to rest, preferably in their own home. Unless they wanted the Hulk staying in the White House guest quarters instead?

Steve closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He was a soldier. Falling asleep whenever he had the chance wasn't hard to do and he was out in seconds. Waking up at the slightest sound was also something ingrained into him and his eyes snapped open only ten minutes after he'd closed them. 

His room was quiet, the blackout blinds down to keep it dark, but he could make out shapes in the shadows and hear the the faint sound of the air conditioning, as well as the familiar breathing of someone else in the room with him. 

Steve sat up as Bucky shuffled across the floor, making no attempt to be quiet as he climbed under the covers and pressed up against Steve, his metal arm sheathed in the sleeve of the soft pyjamas he wore.

"Hey," Steve said, wrapping an arm around him. "You alright?"

"Didn't want to be alone," Bucky mumbled. 

Steve settled down with him, reminding himself that Bucky was vulnerable and having him in his bed meant Steve had to keep a solid grip on any sort of unbrotherly reaction he wanted to have. "It's okay, Buck. You know you can come in here anytime you want to."

"Do you want me to turn up the lights, Captain?" Jarvis asked from overhead, a not so subtle reminder that there was no room for error allowed with the man in his arms, a rule that Steve himself first initiated.

Bucky shook his head against Steve's collarbone and Steve stroked his hair. "Thank you, no, Jarvis."

"As you wish, Sir. I am at your service."

Steve and Bucky were quiet for a while, Steve stroking Bucky's long hair and letting him sort himself out. If Bucky wanted to talk, Steve had to give him the time to figure out his words first.

Finally, Bucky mumbled against Steve's chest and only his super soldier hearing let him make out what he said.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" Steve asked.

"For letting everyone down. Everything that happened was because of me."

Steve pressed a kiss to the top of his head, the most intimacy he'd allow himself. "No. Remember we already talked about this? You've got my six, just as you always have."

Bucky was quiet for another long period of time. "I'm not him," he said.

"What's that?"

Bucky shifted in the bed, moving closer. He sounded sad. "I'm not him. James Buchanan Barnes. I... I can't be him anymore. And I... I'm scared."

"Scared of what?" Steve asked, glad of the darkness. He didn't think that Bucky would ever confess to something like this with the lights on. 

"That someday you'll decide I'm not close enough to being him and I'll be all alone." 

Steve pulled Bucky close against him, squeezing him until he couldn't help but feel it, like the weighted blankets Bucky had for when he was feeling overwhelmed. Bucky clung to him and swallowed.

"No, Buck," Steve said. "You'll never be alone. You have Natasha and Sam and Clint and Thor and Tony, even if he is an ass. You even have the Hulk. He doesn't like anyone, but he adores you. We're your family."

"But I'm not him," Bucky sniffed. "You want me to be him."

"Bucky. Buck. Listen to me, Buck. You are James Buchanan Barnes. You always have been and you always will be. It doesn't matter how much you've changed. I've changed. Everyone changes. The whole point of living is to change from who we were to who we are, all on the way to who we're going to be. You're James Buchanan Barnes because no matter what your life has been or what your body looks like, you still have the same soul you did when we were kids and that's never going to not be true."

Bucky was quiet for a moment, absorbing that, and then he started to cry, soft, healing sobs as he clung to Steve while Steve rocked him and smiled.


End file.
